Attachment for container carriers



' July 17, 1934. F K, FILDES 1,966,492

ATTACHMENT FOR CONTAINER CARRIERS Filed Aug. 10, 1933 2 Sheets-Sheet l INVENTOR: Wad/aria iLFi/uws.

BY r M ATTORNEYS.

July 17, 1934. F. K. FILDES ATTACHMENT FOR CONTAINER CARRIERS Filed Aug. 10, 1933 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 Patented July 17, 1934 V in";

UNITED v STJA-TES.

PATENTIOFFICE 1,966,492 4 t ATTACHMENT FOR CONTAINER CARRIERS Frederick'K. Fildes, Altoona, Pa. t I ADDlication August 1o, 1933,j serial No. 684,484

, 8 Claims. (c1.105-3 c This invention relates to container carriers, such as railway cars, motor trucks, or trailers,

and more specifically t attachments for 'holding' 7 a container against shifting while it rests on the carrier, yet facilitating its removal'incident to:

the raising of the container a relatively short distance above its seat; In certain respects the inventionrepresents an improvement upon the type of container carrier disclosed in U. S. Letters Patent No. 1,845,594, granted to me on February 16, 1932.

One object of the invention is to provide at-' tachments for a container carrier characterized by seating abutments which are efiective to prevent both lateral and longitudinal shifting of a container and movable'automatically to positions above and beneath the container supporting surfaces incident to the operations of lowering and raising the container with respect to the carrier.

0 Another object of the invention is to provide container'seating abutments arranged in pairs at each side of thecar, with each pair connected by a barrier-which extends across the end wall of 'a containerand serves to guard the same:

ment or example of my invention, having refer ence to the accompanying drawings, whereof: 40'

tion. v

Fig. II represents an enlarged cross section of the same, taken as indicated by the lines IIII of Fig.1, with certain of the parts broken la'way for clearness of illustration.

Fig. III represents an enlarged plan view of the same. 1 q 507 Fig. IV represents aperspective view of one of the fixed attachments at the sides of the car.

.Fig. V.represents aperspective view of the inside of one of .the movable shift-restraining Fig.1 represents a part side elevation of a way flat car fitted with attachments of "my inven I l1 st'ruction of one of the sliding abutments 8a is most clearly illustrated in Figs. V and VI. At its outside of one of the movable shift-restraining abutments. a

With particular reference to .Fig. I of the drawings, the numeral 1 designates comprehensively a portion of a railroad'flat car and 2 the floor or platform thereof. The car is substantially unobstructed throughout: its-central floor space. At spacedtintervals along theside sills '3' there are fixed attachments designated at 4, 4'. In viewof the fact that th'e'several attachments are duplicates ofoneanother, excepting the end ones 4, the following description is limited to an explanation of one individual'attachment, therebyavoiding repetition M Each 'fixed attachmentA', in the illustrated example of my invention is inthe form of a. casting having 'two adjacent rectangular pockets 5, constructed in the manner of stake pockets, and having flanges 6.which are attached to the web of the side sill 3 of'the car, and an additional flange '7 which is attached to the top surface of the side sill'3'. The detailed construction of the attachments 4 .is most clearly illustrated in Fig. IV. Each fixed attachment! accommodates two sliding abutments 8a, 8b which "are guided for vertical movement, withintthe attachments, and which are raised and lowered by operation of hell crank levers 9a, 9b.

The end attachments i4 inmost respects structurally conform with the foregoing description of the intermediate attachments4 except that they are shaped to accommodate only one sliding abutment, and hence further explanation thereof is deemed unnecessary.

The sliding abutments 8a, 8bare counterparts. of each other except that thetop portion of one is formed in a reverse manner to the top portion of the other. Each sliding abutment 8a, 8b includes a vertical leg 12 of substantially U-shaped cross section which fits within a pocket 5 of one of the fixed attachments 4. The detailed conupper end eachsliding abutment 8a, 8b is formed with' an upstanding wall 13' which extends in ward over the floor of the car in a plane'transversely of thecar, and an additional upstanding wall 14 which extends longitudinally of the car I just beyond the side edgethereof. The two'upstanding walls. 13, 14 serve asshift-restraining elementseand define corners against which the cornersof a container, such as illustrated at A, is adapted to be seated, The upstanding walls 13 serve-to restrainlongitudinal shifting of a containeron the-'carrienwhereas the upstanding wall 14 serves to restrain transverse shifting of a container on the carrier. At their top edges the walls 14 are inclined upwardly and outwardly as indicated at 15, and similarly the upstanding walls 13 are inclined upwardly and away from the adjacent container, as indicated at 16. In an obvious manner the inclined surfaces l5, l6 assist in guiding a container to seated position on the carrier.-

At itsupper end each sliding abutment 8a, 8b is formed with a cavity 1'7 into which the long arms 18 of the bell crank levers 9a, 91) project. At the top of each cavity 17 there is a smoothly curved bearing surface 19 which is engaged by the rounded upturned end 20 of the lever arm 18. It will be readily apparent that upward swinging movement of the bell crank levers 9w, 9b causes the abutments 8a, 8b to be raised vertically while guided by the attachments 4-.

In the illustrated example of my invention, the car 1 is adapted to carry a number of containers A and has four sliding abutments 8a, 819 for each container, each abutment serving to engage a corner of a container. Moreover, in the illustrat ed example, opposite pairs of sliding abutments 8a, 8b are connected by barriers 21 which extend across the end walls of the containers, serving as an additional safeguard against dislod'gment of the containers from their seated positions. Each barrier 21 may conveniently take the form of a ported by castings 24. The castings 24 are in turn secured to angle bars 25 running longitudinally and forming a part of the car frame spaced inwardly from the side sills 3. Each bell crank lever 9a, 911 includes a short arm 26 terminating at its inner end in a pedal 27 which is engaged by the bottom'surfaces of a container, as it is lowered onto the carrier. To permit the installa tion of the bell crank-levers 9a, 9b in the manner shown, the car floor2 is cut away in the vicinity of the bell crank levers. Moreover, at the sides of the car, elevated supports for the containers in the form of narrow wood strips 29 are preferably employed. The supporting strips 29 extend lone gitudinally from one attachment 4 to another L and cause the containers to be raised slightly abovethe car'flo'or 2, thus affording ample space for the short arms 26 of the bell crank levers 9a, 97) between the car floor and the bottom surfaces of the containers. It will be noted that the long arms 18 of the bell crank levers 9a, 9b are disposed outside of the container seating spaces, so that thereis no opportunity for the containers to-interfere with their operation.

The operation of the above described container 1 carrier is as follows: In the event that containers A are to be transferred onto the railway car,

1 by overhead hoisting apparatus, the operator proceeds to'lower a container onto the car in a position directly above and square with the seat- I ing' space into which the container is to be lowered. Incident to the lowering of the container, its bottom surface will strike the pedals 2'? of the bell crank levers 9a, 9b and cause the short arms 28 of the levers to be depressed and the long arms i 18 tob'e swung upward. With upward movement cally from positions beneath the top-surfaces er the elevated strips 29 to positions above the same.

Incident to raising of the sliding abutments 8a, 8b, their upstanding walls 13, 14 will surround the corners of the container which is being deposited on the car and will assist in the position ing of the container by guiding its corners along the inclined surfaces 15, 16, causing the container to be squarely seated on the carrier. After the containers have been thus depositedupon the car, the upstanding walls 13 of the abutments 'iia, 8b will be effective to prevent longitudinal shifting of the containers, and the upstanding walls 14 will be elfective to prevent transverse shifting of the containers. Furthermore, the barriers 21 will 1 be'effe'ctive'to guard the end walls of the con- 1 tainer.

When a container is removed from the car by means of an overhead hoist, as soon as the bottom surface of the container is raised a short distance above the car floor 2, the sliding abutments 8a, 8-1) will fall by gravity, to positions beneath or substantially level with the elevated suppOrts 29, with downward swingingof the arms 18 of the bell crank levers 9a, 9b and upward swinging of their short arms 26 as shownin dot-and-dash lines in Fig. II. Likewise the barriers 21 will au tomatically recede to inoperative positions incident to the initial movement in raising a container from its seat as shown in Fig. 1, Accordingly, when a container has been raised a slightdistance above the car floor, it may then be shifted laterally to a truck or station platform or any other location where it is desired to place the container.

It is to be especially noted that the container carrier of this invention can be used with many types of container transfer apparatus, and that inasmuch as the central floor space of thecarrier is unobstructed, the carrier may at once be converted to ordinary flat car use. Moreover, the container carrier of this invention is particularly useful where containers are handled by hand-operated hoisting apparatus because the containers need only be raised a short distance above the carrier floor preparatoryto their later- 21 shifting onto or off the carrier.

While I have described and illustrated one particular example of my invention, it will be apparent that various changes may be made in the form of the apparatus disclosed without departing from the, spirit of the invention as defined in the annexed claims.

Having thus described my invention,.I claim:

1. In combination with a container carrier, spaced attachments attached to and extending outwardly beyond the sides of the carrier, container shift-restraining abutments guided for vertical movement within said attachments, and levers extendingfrom said abutments inwardly over the floor of the carrier 7 for engagement with the'bottom of a container, said levers serving to raise the abutments to operative shiftrestraining positions incident to the lowering of a container onto the carrier.

-2. In combination with a container carrier,

spaced attachments attached to and extending outwardly beyond the sides of the carrier, container shift-restraining abutments guided for vertical movement within said attachments, and levers pivoted to the carrier and extending from said abutments inwardly overthe' iloor er the carrier for engagement with the bottom of a container, said abutments being normally urged by gravity to depressed positions not obstruct--v ing the lateral transfer of containers, and said levers serving to raise the abutments to :operative shift-restraining positions incident to the lowering of a container onto the carrier.

3. In combination with a container carrier, spaced attachments'attached to and extending outwardly beyond the sides of the carrier, abutments guided for vertical movement within said attachments and having upstanding members efiective to prevent'both lateral and longitudinal shifting of a container, and levers extending from said abutments inwardly over the floor ot the carrier for engagement with the bottom of a container, said levers serving to raise the abutments to operative shift-restraining positions incident to the lowering of a container onto the carrier.

4. In combination" with a container carrier having a substantially unobstructed central floor space, spacedattachments attached to the sides of the carrier, including pockets extending beyond the side, sills, elevated supports for a container extending above the carrier floor,

container shift-restraining abutments guided for vertical movement within said pockets, and means for automatically raising said abutments from positions beneath said elevated supports, to positions thereabove incident to .the lowering of a container onto the carrier.

5. In combination with a container carrier, spaced attachments on the sides of the carrier including pocketsextending beyond the side sills, elevated supports" for a container extending above the carrier floor, shift-restraining abutments guided forvertical movement with said pockets, and levers. pivoted to the carrier beneath said supports and extending from said abutments inward over the floor of the carrier for engagement with the bottom of a container, said levers serving to raise the abutments from positions beneath said supports to positions thereabove incident to the lowering of a container onto the carrier.

6. In combination with a container carrier having a substantially unobstructed central floor space, spaced attachments on the sides of the carrier including elevated supports for the corners of a container extending above the carrier floor, abutments guided for vertical movement within said attachments and having upstanding members effective to prevent both lateral and longitudinal shifting of a container, and means for automatically raising said abutments from positions beneath said elevated supports to positions thereabove incident to the lowering of a container onto the carrier.

7. In combination with a container carrier, spaced attachments on the sides of the carrier, container shift-restraining abutments guided for vertical movement within said attachments, barriers connecting opposite pairs of said abutments and serving to guard the end walls of a container when seated on the carrier, and means for automatically raising said abutments and barriers to operative positions incident to the lowering of a container onto the carrier.

8. In combination with a container carrier, spaced attachments on the sides of the carrier, elevated supports for a container extending above the carrier floor, container shift-restraining abutments guided for vertical movement within said attachments, barriers connecting opposite pairs of said abutments and serving to guard the end walls of a container when seated on the carrier, and means for automatically raising said abutments and barriers from positions beneath said elevated supports to positions thereabove incident to the lowering of a container onto the carrier.

FREDERICK K. FILDES. 

